The Eastern Michigan University Baseball team had a successful weekend in the state of Arkansas, taking two out of three games from the University of Central Arkansas Sugar Bears in a weekend series to improve to 2-4 on the season.
Eastern Michigan won game one of the series by a score of 9-5, game two 14-6, and lost game three late in 10 innings, 10-9.
Like much of the first three-game series against Pittsburgh, the offense was alive and well for EMU in all three games. They had 13 hits in the first game, 11 in the second game, and 15 in the third and final game.
The weekend started with the Eagles winning the first game, 9-5. Drew Beckner (Westerville, Ohio) took the ball for Eastern Michigan. He pitched five innings of one-run ball. He additionally struck out eight batters in 102 pitches.
Eastern’s bats were the story of the game and the reason why they won the first game. They recorded four extra-base hits. Two of them were from Devan Zirwas (Imperial, Pa.) who had a double and a home run, which were his second and third hits of the season.
EMU had three other players get multiple hits for the afternoon, including Logan Hugo (Essexville, Mich.) with four, Giano Zuccaro (Middleburg Heights, Ohio) with three, and Bruce Jellison (Hartland, Mich.) with two. All three guys had multiple RBIs, and Hugo led the way with four to add to his strong start on the season.
The bullpen in the first game held up better for Eastern Michigan but they still allowed four runs. They were up 9-1 after five innings. After two pitchers allowed a combined four runs, Nick Keane (Harrisburg, Pa.) closed the game. He got in trouble a little bit allowing three walks but still was able to retire the side and not have a single runner score. It would ultimately make the final score of the first game be 9-5.
Game two was similar to game one in a lot of different aspects. Winning 14-6, the only difference was it took a while for Eastern to get the lead. After trailing 4-2 after four innings, that is when the Eagles’ offense began to take off. They needed two innings to score 12 runs, doing so in the top of the fifth and sixth innings.
Four players recorded multi-hit games for the Eagles in the second game: Connor Walsh (Mattawan, Mich.), Kevin Krill (White Lake, Mich.), Jellison, and Brendan Kleiman (Olney, Md.) all had two hits in the win over Central Arkansas.
In opposition to the first four games of the season, EMU’s bullpen dominated. Led by Ethan Davis (Brownstown, Ind.) and helped out by Eric Boothe (Rochester, Mich.) and Fischer Hendershot (Flushing, Mich.), Davis threw for three and a third of shut-out ball allowing three hits and striking out two batters. Boothe helped Davis get out of a jam in the eighth inning with two men on base.
Fischer Hendershot pitched the ninth inning and he allowed one runner to reach base while nobody came across home plate. In their first four games this year, the Green and White allowed at least four bullpen runs but allowing zero on Saturday was a huge reason why Eastern was able to take game two in a blowout fashion, allowing themselves to get a victory in the series.
The third game was offensively dominated as well. Taking 10 innings to finish, Eastern Michigan dropped game three of the series to Central Arkansas, 10-9. They once again outhit the Sugar Bears, 15-13, but it still was not enough to get a sweep.
Early on, Eastern Michigan had the lead, with a 3-0 advantage after the first inning. They lost the lead come the fourth inning but were able to tie it back up in the fourth and seventh before ultimately taking the lead 9-8 in the seventh inning.
From there, UCA tied it up in the eighth inning before winning it in the 10th. Eastern Michigan went scoreless the last three innings at the plate.
In total, six players had a multi-hit effort, which included Kleiman tallying three hits. Kleiman also had a double and a home run in the loss. Of all the hits the Eagles had, five of them were for extra bases. Eastern Michigan sent three baseballs over the fence, which included Kleiman, Harrison Travis (Soddy Daisy, Tenn) and Ty Stecko (North Huntingdon, Pa.).
Once again, Eastern’s bullpen found themselves. After Bobby Jones (Loveland, Ohio) pitched three innings of seven runs, the bullpen, led by Drew Norris (Leawood, Kan.), pitched a total of six innings while only allowing two earned runs. The runs allowed early haunted the Eagles’ late as they fell just short of a sweep in the state of Arkansas. Putting it into perspective, the program had no series sweeps last season, and last swept an opponent in three or more games from May 18th-May 20th 2023, where they took three games from the Northern Illinois Huskies.
Up Next
Eastern Michigan will stay on the road for a four-game weekend series, February 28th-March 2nd against the Presbyterian College Blue Hose in Clinton, S.C. First pitch for game one Friday is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. ET. Due to the cold temperatures in Michigan, the Eagles are not home until March 21, when they host the Miami University RedHawks at Oestrike Stadium at 3 p.m.
For more coverage on the Eastern Michigan University Baseball team, you can visit The Echo’s Website.
